Book Hooks is a weekly meme hosted by Marketing for Romance Writers as part of the MFRW Authors Blog. Readers can jump from one author to another who share hooks from their current WIP (work in progress) or any previously published books.
For this week’s edition of Book Hooks, I give you a teaser from Knight Moves, book three in the When We Were Young series, a m/m contemporary, young adult romance. You can check out other book hooks by participating authors HERE.
Although they’re torn apart, they still hold a piece of each other’s heart.
Blurb: After receiving his grade twelve diploma and marking his eighteenth birthday, René Oshawee cannot fight the temptation seventeen-year-old high school junior Billy Redsky blatantly offers now that what they share has become taboo.
When their secret romance is blown into the open, Billy’s foster parents send René to Toronto to complete the last of his schooling under the supervision of a family friend, leaving Billy behind at their Ojibway community.
Now Billy and René must make the biggest decision of their lives—fight for the true love they know they’ll never find with anyone else or go their separate ways.
Genre(s): Multicultural, M/M Contemporary Romance, LGBTQ+, First Nations Romance, Young Adult, New Adult.
Heat Rating: Level 2
Publication Date: April 16, 2021
Publisher: eXtasy Books
After the meeting, Billy met the sober people helping Mom keeping the bottle corked. They weren’t weirdos, either. Nice older people. Friendly.
They left the church basement where the meeting had gone down and headed for Mrs. O’s boss town car. That was another change in Mom. In the past, she wouldn’t have accepted a ride. She would’ve screamed she wasn’t going anywhere near what an Oshawee owned.
Mom even buckled up her seat belt after Billy told her that if he wanted to earn his full license next January, everyone he chauffeured had to follow the rules. She didn’t even complain. He couldn’t remember when he’d last heard Mom complain after she’d finished rehab. She was famous for finding fault with everything, even blaming a broom she’d tripped over for her messed-up life.
“That was pretty cool.” Billy started the engine.
“I’m glad you enjoyed it.” Mom hadn’t even complained when he’d told her she couldn’t smoke in the car. “They have different meeting formats.”
“Yeah? What kind?” Billy backed out of the parking spot.
“Oh…round table. It’s when we all get to talk. Women only. Men only. Topics. Steps. That kind of stuff.” She fiddled with her purse strap. “We…the program teaches us honesty. Honesty with ourselves. Honesty with others without hurting them.”
“Hurting them?” He guided them down the street.
“Yes. We-we can’t be honest if it means…” She glanced around. “If it means we’ll hurt the other person.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Say a guy is cheating on his ol’ lady. He can’t tell her…if he does, it’ll hurt her. He has to…uh…live with his guilt and betrayal. Telling her he cheated when he was out on a bender…it’s his problem. Not hers. Telling her to relieve his guilt is at her expense, then, and not his. Am I making sense?”
“Yeah, you sure are.” Billy gripped the steering wheel.
Shit, now he had a dilemma. If he told Carla the truth, he had to figure out if his confession was for honesty because of their friendship or if he was trying to relieve his own guilt. But there wasn’t any guilt in play, at least he assumed so.
From the beginning, he’d never wanted to hide the truth from her. He wanted her to know the real him. Not the fake him René had forced Billy to become.
“Mom. Five. Gimme five.” Thanks to her, he’d made his decision. Damn, never in his wildest dreams had he imagined Mom could offer wise advice.
“Five? What for?” She laid five.
“’Cause you and your program helped me solve something.”
“Oh? I did? It did?” Surprise was in her rough voice, and delight. She sounded on the verge of giggling.
“Yeah, you sure did.” He couldn’t help the warm glow expanding in his chest. He faced her, grinning.
She returned his grin with a big, beautiful smile of her own that produced a striking radiance to her face. Lately, the radiance was erasing the rough years of drinking. She was beginning to look like her former self, when his young buddies would razz Billy with Your mom’s pretty hot, totally MILF, which had left him gagging.
Now, he wasn’t gagging. He was proud to have a stunning mom, because he…loved her. Yes, he loved her. He’d always loved her. And no matter what she did, he’d keep on loving her.
He braked at the stop sign.
She reached over and touched his arm. “I love you, Billy.” In the dark confines of the car, her voice had reverted to the shaky, unsure-of-herself, smoky gravel.
He laid his hand over hers. “I love you, too, Mom.”
CHECK OUT OTHER BOOK HOOKS FROM PARTICIPATING AUTHORS!
Maggie Blackbird 